Today’s word

It’s been a long day. 

Come back tomorrow for the details.

Who’s counting?

Well, we are, I guess.

Ever since we’ve been travelling to new and exciting places, we’ve kept a record of where we’ve been.  Hard to imagine, but there was a time before we met, when my Hero would draw lines on maps to record the roads he’d driven, the train lines he’d ridden.  I would do something similar, but in the form of a list or a scrapbook of postcards. 

How many times did we go to Newquay for our holidays?  Five times, before my parents decided to venture to The Continent, sowing the wanderlust seed and beginning a lifetime love of exploring new places.

How many times had I been to London?  That was easy – none!  Until I was well into my teens, anyway.

We counted these things, we recorded where we’d been and what’s more, we noticed things along the way.  My Hero and I grew up with the I Spy generation and we enjoyed ticking boxes and checking things off as we went.

We still do!

So, from childhood holidays to Switzerland and Majorca in the late 1960s to more recent adventures to South America, we’ve counted the countries we’ve visited.  We’ve recorded them first on a map with a crayon and more recently on a website called PassportStamp.  As we’ve explored more of the USA, we’ve counted the states we’ve visited too.  We have our own rules for this: we have to set foot on the ground (of course), so a drive-through doesn’t count!

Sadly, PassportStamp has become a little unreliable of late, so I took the precaution of copying the data of our travels during a recent update.  Just as well I did, because it seems to have disappeared for good leaving me with the challenge of finding a replacement.

The obvious place to start was my TripAdvisor record.  According to that, we’ve visited 67 countries, 615 cities and I have no friends    It’s not very detailed though, and I wanted a way of recording a little more information than simply sticking pins in a map.

So I looked at World 66. Hmm.  Strangely, we’ve visited two more countries according to that.  I thought It would be easy to identify the discrepancy but after almost an hour sifting through lists of countries, I’ve given up.  Not important.

Perhaps there’s another one to try?

There’s a map on the Travelblog page, I found, so ticked the boxes of countries we’d visited again, click the button and…oh….64 countries visited.

It seems as though it’s not so much a question of how many countries we’ve been to but what countries the website designers include on their list.  Or even, what constitutes a country?  Google lists 257 countries and includes Aruba in there but not Curacao, even though both the islands form part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.  A little consistency might be useful, perhaps?

Oh, hang on a minute…

I think some of us around here are pretty used to explaining such things?

So the search for the definitive app or website to record our travels goes on and in the meantime, we keep our own list which records 68 countries (we counted Curacao and Aruba as separate from The Netherlands, by the way).

Whilst I was on the Travelblog page, I thought I’d have a go at the USA state map too.  34 and counting…but then there’s also Washington DC which hasn’t been included as a state here and isn’t technically regarded as such, but in some respects could make 35….

But who’s counting?

Progress

Just before I went away, I acquired a new laptop for work use.  Ever-increasing security concerns meant that we were no longer able to use our own machines for local government purposes and emails sent to my work address would have to be read and replied to using the new laptop.  It was very secure, with numerous log in screens and ever changing passwords.

So secure, it wouldn’t let me in!

This morning, I collected it from the place where bad laptops go for correction and rehab and hopefully, it will now stop giving me some message about non-compliance.  Of course, it will also now take me at least twice as long to collect and reply to my emails as it used to but then, that’s progress.

Not that I’m against progress, of course.  Tomorrow, we’re going to see Prince Igor live from the Met – but we’ll not be at the Met, of course.  Actually, we’re going to the cinema in Cheltenham which is a little easier to get to on a Saturday afternoon (even if sadly, we can’t meet up afterwards, Jordi).  Isn’t it wonderful that such a performance can be opened up to a world wide audience?  We’ve been slow to catch onto these live HD performances but are very much looking forward to meeting up with friends for a bit of culture too.

I’ve been working on my travel journal this last week and made such good progress, I’ve finished it!

I managed to keep it going until almost the end of our cruise, actually, completing each day fairly easily whilst we were on the move.  But once we’d got to Ecuador, the stories were coming thick and fast and I couldn’t keep up.

It’s always a dilemma.  I don’t really aim to create a masterpiece but simply to record the everyday occurrences which make me smile and which make the days special, in a fun and colourful way.  I find that I need to record all the bits as they happen, there and then, however, or else I forget them. 

So, I  keep a notebook in my pocket or my bag the whole time and scribble things down wherever I go.  That’s where I write down the names and the small reminders which will help me put my journal together when I’m ready.

Like the word “windly”, which is how our guide Walter (or was it Hualta?) described the weather one day.  Sweet, n’est-ce pas?

Speaking of sweet, it was fun to play with the Clover Pompom makers the other evening when I kept our small friends company for a couple of hours.  Much easier than the old cardboard circle method I’m sure.

In no time at all we’d used up every scrap of wool we could find and made a family of pompoms because it seems that, no sooner had we created pompoms of different sizes, the anthropomorphism kicked in. 

(Beware the naughty little pompom, then, because it’s a bit of a rascal, I can tell you!)

So now, I’m ready to progress onto the next thing.  Will it be the traveller’s blanket which I think I might base on some of the lovely patterns and motifs we came across on our travels?  Or will I open up the Silhouette rubber stamping stuff I had for Christmas and which I’ve not had time to play with yet?  Come to think of it, I’ve not opened up my Gelli plate yet either – who knows, I might combine all three ideas and create a storm next week!

Oh, and today, I’m thinking of our friends who continued on the ship after we disembarked in Lima.  They will have reached Buenos Aires today and most will be making their way home soon, if not already. 

It seems an age since we left them to go to Machu Picchu.

..and what wasn’t

Of course, there were plenty of other treasures we simply had to leave behind.  Not only the quipu in the antique stall on Pisac market, but also a few pieces of rather lovely textiles too.

Our hotel in Urubamba had a huge bathroom and either side of the free standing bath were long ottoman-style stools upholstered in this rather lovely (hand?) embroidered fabric.

The fabric itself is wool – or alpaca, maybe – and the embroidery worked in similar yarn.  Mostly french knots or similar, there were other pieces of this work for sale in the shop on site and also in the more expensive gift shops.  Scarves and shawls as well as cushions were worked in this style but though I admired the work, the price of such pieces was pretty hefty.  And whilst I don’t doubt the work to be authentic and traditional, for some reason, it didn’t say “Peru” to me.  I suspect, too, that it would look all too juicy to our Gloucestershire moths as well

There was a similar technique worked on the cushions in our room, but this time worked on velvet fabric.  I recognise the french knots of course, but the lines?  Raised chain band do you think?

Finally, I resisted any temptation to bring home a piece of costume, however fun and authentic it might be.  It was a good opportunity to take a closer look though!

pWhat was in the bag?

It was a fairly busy week; one of those which filled up as the days have gone by and built up momentum rather.  So, the bag of good things sitting at my feet here in the studio went unopened until now.

The bag itself was bought in Chinchero, as were most of our treasures.  It’s a sturdy woven fabric, has the zip pocket but is otherwise a simple striped bucket bag.  I’ll enjoy using it.

We couldn’t leave Peru without buying one chullo but rather than choose one with llamas and suchlike, we went for a softer, alpaca one in pretty, plant-dyed colours whilst we were at the market in Pisac.

Not being a particularly adept French-Knotter myself, I quite liked the surface decoration.

Now, you already know about this length of braid from that same market, intended for my hat.  Since we’ve been home, I’ve got hold of the book and have read a little more about the methods of weaving these narrow pieces.  The concern appears to be that younger women are working more on these narrow, quicker projects rather than the larger, more time consuming pieces because they are more saleable of course.

So, I am particularly happy that we chose a bigger piece when we were in Chinchero.  Clearly, a more complex combination of pattern, this weaving is about 45cm wide and a metre or so in length and was worked on a backstrap loom by one of the women in the cooperative.  The patterns are traditional and include the hoe “hook”, the cows eye (circle with a dot in the middle) and puma claws, similar to the narrow braid design.  The yarns are dyed with natural dyes and though the bulk of the weaving is worked in wool, the white puma claws are alpaca.

The whole piece is edged with the traditional “eye border”, worked with the forked stick and by picking up the threads in exactly the same way as we watched the woman doing that morning.

 

We plan to hang our weaving somewhere at home, though right now, are undecided where and how!

We love it!

We brought home a few more small pieces, though considering the price, it’s hard to believe they are of quite the same heritage.  Still, they are colourful and useful examples of Peruvian textile traditions, for sure.

Oh, and one last piece.  My hero spotted the lady with these bags sitting quietly on the grass outside the cathedral.  I paid hardly anything for it, which is possibly just as well, because it’s not exactly heirloom quality!  But it’s made from a piece of old fabric, is colourful and fun and for me, it represents a morning spent chatting with those old ladies who were happy to tell us about their costume, their life and their failing eyesight.  We loved them.